


To Have and to Hold

by Quinara



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Futurefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2310821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinara/pseuds/Quinara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slice of life for 2014 in a world where the wedding actually was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Have and to Hold

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by an LJ post by rbfvid about some of the pictures of Emma Caulfield and Nick Brendon at Oz Comic-Con. Because obviously at least somewhere they are happy! (Although, since this appears to be set in the summer holidays and they have an anniversary coming up nonetheless, the wedding may or may not have been the one from Hells Bells specifically...)

He was reaching for the remote when the déjà vu hit. It was Monday; it wasn’t the same – but Xander found himself on the couch, wincing as he reached for the remote, the taste of beer still on his tongue. He’d shot his back over the weekend, laying tile, and now he was resting up while his guys kept going on the latest contract without him. The kids weren’t back at school yet, so they were running wild with boredom, and Anya…

 _“Kai Harris, stop tormenting your sister right now!”_ Her voice travelled in from the kitchen, where she was yelling as she came in from the back porch. _“Your father built that treehouse so you could play on it **together** , and he can unbuild it just as quickly!”_

There were faint whines of complaint, fear and ultimately obedience, as Xander hoped Kai finally let the ladder down so Siri could climb up.

That was the moment when Xander reached for the remote and winced as his back pulled again. It struck him like a sledgehammer, the memory of how this moment was meant to be. His back hurt. He felt useless. His kids were rebelling and it all had sent Anya cold and shrewish and mean and –

Only – when she came out of the kitchen, she wasn’t.

Fresh from the day at Magic Box HQ ( _Your No. 1 Supplier for Everything Else on the West Coast and Beyond_ ), Anya Harris was a woman who looked Euro chic and self-confident, not like anybody else in the family. She had round, dark sunglasses and understated, glinty jewellery that Xander had bought for her on Buffy’s advice. It looked like it might even go with the necklace he’d bought on his own, currently in a box and waiting for their anniversary next week.

The sunglasses were now sweeping short blonde hair back from Anya’s face. “I think we can say that Niklas and Sigrid take after you,” she joked, bluntly, while Xander stared at her in the clean light of their house. A house finished by a man who finished houses professionally and a woman who’d been developing taste for a thousand years. The silence hung for a few seconds more. “Hello; Xander?” She paused, then spoke again. “Um, why are you staring at me? I insulted your ability to father well-behaved children.”

Still without words, Xander shook his head. Kai and Siri were _not_ Josh and Sarah, whose names and faces were still carved on his memory. These kids were quieter and definitely his genetically, one of them conceived in an aeroplane and the other in Buffy’s basement – which no one ever needed to know. They were named for Anya’s picks from the internet, even if she was annoyed she couldn’t remember any names from her own childhood. Their whole family was quieter, less vicious than the one in that nightmare. Including him, tanned and muscular in the flowery shorts Anya had brought him back from her last business trip.

“You aren’t sick as well as injured, are you?” Anya was asking now, and it was relief that he was feeling. Great heady swirls of it as his wife rushed over to him, sat by his side and felt for a temperature.

Feeling more than well enough, Xander batted Anya’s hand away and reached to wrap his arm around her waist. His back was still twinging, neglected, but he hugged this Anya to him and smelled the evening sweat on her neck, the trailing hints of Farina Eau de Cologne. It made him feel like a hero. “I love you, Anya,” he promised, holding her as tightly as he could.

Stiff with surprise, it took a few moments for Anya to relax. But then she did and she patted his chest with two strong, reassuring taps. “You are very strange,” she said, in a long-suffering way. “But I love you too. Now, if you aren’t sick, you listen to my story about today’s money.”

Nodding, Xander relaxed back against the couch cushions. “OK.” Anya left her legs slung over his, but slid back so she could also get comfortable, her head coming to rest just by his shoulder.

“So.” Her eyes met his, sunglasses askew on her head. “You know we were due a new shipment of salamander eyes? Well…”

Honestly, as the words washed over him, Xander thought about telling her. He tried not to bring up the wedding that nearly wasn’t, and Anya was hardly proud of it either, to the extent that most people who knew them nowadays probably figured they’d been unlucky with the photographer, rather than have any other reason to hide the photos. But it seemed important, somehow, to make sure Anya knew that he realised what an idiot he’d been. How little he’d known himself and how very little he’d really known _her_.

And yet, in the end, it probably wasn’t necessary. “Xander?” Anya interrupted her narrative, his name not a nag but a repeated reminder of who and where he'd come from. “You’re not listening to me; why aren’t you listening?” He’d promised, he’d sworn, to honour and respect this woman – and he relied on her to not let him get away with anything but.

“Sorry,” he apologised, and listened to her problems as if they were his to solve. Her successes felt like his, because, of course, they were.

On Thursday Xander went back to work.

.


End file.
